


the ballad of reading gaol

by spiraetspera



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Gen, backlashing with a bullet full of love and additional bits of angst, riza learns how to shoot a gun and roy learns to swim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 10:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13316130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiraetspera/pseuds/spiraetspera
Summary: Roy falls into a fever like none other in the winter of 1901.





	the ballad of reading gaol

**Author's Note:**

> so. i kno i already have a series dedicated to the relationship between roy and riza as teenagers. and yet. i will finish it this time.

_Yet each man kills the thing he loves_

_By each let this be heard,_

_Some do it with a bitter look,_

_Some with a flattering word,_

_The coward does it with a kiss,_

_The brave man with a sword!_

 

_Some love too little, some too long,_

_Some sell, and others buy;_

_Some do the deed with many tears,_

_And some without a sigh:_

_For each man kills the thing he loves,_

_Yet each man does not die._

__  
  
  
  
  
  
*

  
She doesn't mind the new boy, really. Most of the times, he is with her father behind closed doors, talking about awfully clever matters, such as calculating the amount of salt and whatnot needed to properly form gold. Not that there isn't a need for it, Riza thinks a bit more bitterly than necessary, as she counts the exact steps from the school to home. By the end of the week, they won't have enough wax to keep the kitchen light and warm.

Sometimes, all she hears is the apprentice's laugh, loud and brash and all-teeth. The thought makes Riza's mouth curl in distaste. She imagines a tall and aggressive boy, spring-born, too impatient and way too overconfident. It is no surprise thus, that she is eager to avoid him and has managed it so far.

At the finish line, the number of her footsteps total up to three thousand six hundred fifty-ish. She berates herself for losing focus. After all, dinner time is nearing, and she has no idea what to assemble.

So, like a mantra, she makes a maternal list of all the ingredients need to be bought, and knows, even before she is at the half of the mental catalogue that the money they have is approximately enough for three items in her head.

The winter wind blows her through the doors of the Hawkeye mansion, where it is impossibly cold, maybe bleaker than the November air outside.

Riza has heard the apprentice blame the cold stones. Berthold answered with a grunt of some sort, not quite agreeing with the boy's hypothesis, but never giving a proper response either.

It is not like she cares. Let them be chummy friends and forget her existence all-together completely.

She agrees with her father though.

Stones are not to be blamed for the cold in the house.

 

  
  
  
**

  
There is a gun in the basement which only she knows about. It is placed in the corner, under an old rug, and next to the shelves covered with porridge powder they will never use.

Everything is stale down there and she is the sole visitor of the place, in search for remnants of food they can use up. Her father must have kept some of his alchemist tools and substrates here, for breathing is hard, the kind that scratches her throat and makes her cough if she stays for long.

Technically, the rifle is not hers. It is not her father's either, she assumes. For on its stock, with wonderful, careful inscription, the carving says; _For your wedding, Dearest Lizzy_. And below it: _1885_. It is her mother's, no doubt, from her parents, or an old flame, or a friend - but it doesn't matter now. What matters is the certainty of a weapon in the house, a means of protection, something that whispers about being able to deal with things on your own.

Riza have never used it, and does not plan to. Just the feeling she could, makes her warm. As she goes down there in every second or third evenings, to fish out yet another can of tinned beef, she checks the bundle in the corner, sometimes with a quick glance of her eyes or a caress of her hand.

She knows it is silly, to treat a violent tool with a reverent attention, as if it were a talisman. Yet rarely - almost never - she takes her time and does not care that her eyes tear up from the chemicals, she caresses the gun nevertheless, tries to lift it, tries it up like a robe to wear. She takes her time and pretends that she is brave and strong and able. She pretends she is someone else.

The magic, though, shatters, sooner rather than later. The weaponry is too heavy and she is clumsy. And although she hurries out from the storage as quickly as possible after these stunts, she never ever forgets the presence of the weapon.

You never know when you need to scare someone ( _yourself_ ) off.

 

 

  
  
***

  
The winter of 1901 is the cruelest they had since decades. Snow falls first, then it freezes, then another layer of snow ensures the death of the prudent Western infrastructure. Their village is cut off the civilization, more so than ever. On the third day of December, Riza's school closes and sends every student home.

By the time she manages to get home her clothes are coated with ice and she has no choice but to fling her gentle autumn shoes out in the trash. Such waste, she thinks until she tears up from the anger. It takes her a minute or so to compose herself, breath by breath.

She finds her father sleeping in the study room, his snores light and raspy. The unmistakable stench of some sort of booze slaps her in the face as she navigates herself into the room to draw the curtains and keep the last crumbles of warmth inside. By almost falling on her face she notices a book - Paracelsus' Almanac - on the ground and an éprouvette, a bit too long to be flung between the bookcase and the sofa. Carefully, as to not trip over again, she probes the test-tube, careful for possible splinters of glass around its edges. When she deems it safe, she uses her apron to pick it up. The object smells like a distillery.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, but all the fireplaces are empty in the mansion. Since the snow is blocking most of their windows and the door leading to the backyard and the garden shack with all the coal in it, Riza has to reapply her coat and put on her father's boots lest her toes fall off from the cold.

Halfway to the shack, it dawns on her that something is off. Actual footsteps are visible in the snow, larger than hers - but it cannot possibly be her father's, because his boots have a rounder shape that leave a soggier trace behind. Someone else is in the shack, and they are still there, judging by the lack of fresh and continued footprints. Whoever went into the shanty has not left it yet.

With a frantic-frenzy beating of her heart, she approaches. This kind of task would be exciting, even appealing if read in the novels she leafs through, but Riza can feel nothing right now, at that exact moment, but solid-stone fear throbbing in her throat. She chides herself for not bringing anything heavy - yes, the gun would do good now, wouldn't it?   
Beggars can't be choosers, so just as a formality, she holds her fists up, right to her face in case she needs to hit hard.

She reaches the door. Counts to three.

Before she can open the door though, someone else kicks it out.

All thing considered, she commends herself for not screaming at all.

The stranger does though and has no chance.

 

 

  
****

  
Riza charges, and leaps at the person with full speed and her mad, minor mass. The boy shrieks and puts up his own two hands as a shield, but he is one moment too late. Overcome by the sudden impact, they fall back, the stranger lands on his back - and makes a noise between a swear and a whine - with Riza on his chest, all sprawled and close and panting.

"What the HELL is wrong with you?" the boy says and the bridge of his nose turns all red.

The protest dies on her lips.

The person she has just attacked is her papa's apprentice, the rich boy from the city.

He senses her surprise, which is by no means involve any kind of awkwardness and his grimace turns into a grin at once.

She cannot, for the life of her, remember his name. Maybe it is because his father didn't give much thought to introducing them; or perhaps it is her learning the hard way. There is, after all, no sense in befriending a temporary resident, a boy who is to be gone in a week or two. This is what had happened with the more humble and older and more experienced alchemists. All sent away in disgrace by a day or two - why would it be any different this time?

There is something inherently warm, kinder about him though, as she beholds this boy, this nameless face who shares their roof. His hair is dark, eyes even darker, the pitch-black kind of brown that melts into the pupils. He does not look Amestrian - the shape of his eyes and the color of his skin whisper of Xing.

She stares, unashamed - then blushes, because she is straddling him, truly, like the man and the woman on the picture Mihael showed Katerina during school recess. Katerina laughed and showed Riza, who laughed as well. But neither could understand what the adults did on the poster, nor the feeling trickling in their stomach, carnal and abysmal and foreign. She feels more shy now, clumsy. Being older, he is a bit longer than her, lanky and apparently still adolescent-clumsy, with a birthmark next to his left ear. His blush is nice and he smiles and it is, indeed, all-teeth.

There is also something very smug about him though, especially his smile - he looks like he is certain he is meant for something grandiose. The dimples deepen on his face as he sees her sizing him up.

Riza tries frowning. She should not take such displays of overconfidence easily.

"What were you doing in our shed?"

The boy, seemingly not bothered by Riza still on top of him, spreads his arms-

"The cauldron was supposed to be there. And the coal too. It's fucking cold inside."

The curse rolls in his tongue as a praise - he is bragging. Riza rolls her body off him and rolls her eyes at him. To make certain he understands her annoyance.

"Well" she stands and folds her hands. It bothers her, this unlikely awkwardness she feels around this boy. The alchemists that have visited have all been old men and women - but this boy is only a year or two older. And definitely not attractive. "I thought you were a burglar."

He flashes a smile again, the definition of charm. Riza thinks she'd make a great politician.

Then he offers his hand, still on the ground.

"Roy Mustang."

"Like the horse?" she is confused.

He pouts.

"Like my name, Miss Hawkeye."

She grimaces.

"Don't." She stares at his hand, still stubbornly stuck out for her to take. "It makes me sound like a spinster."

"Well then. Will you do a burglar the honor and tell me your name?" And, as if sensing her hesitation, he adds, in one short breath. "PleaseitisverycoldandIjustwant tolightafire."

His hand is very soft as she takes it. A scholar's hands. A hand brought up in comfort and care. Hers are already hard and dry from the housework, but she squeezes the boy's proudly nevertheless. As though this was a test.

"I'm Riza." She says, not more than a breath. He smiles wide, wider than necessary and puts his other hand on her arm. Then yanks her down, hard.

"Wha-"

They are on the same level now.

"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Riza" he whispers back and pours a fistful of snow into the collar of her pullover, where skin meets clothing.

This time, she is the one to scream.

 

 

  
  
*****

  
She is as angry as she is drenched. And when finally she returns back into the house, she fails to notice that all the fireplace are lit and that warmth has embraced the mansion.   
With accompanied swears and huffs, she gets rid of her clothes and puts on the warmest and ugliest sweater she owns, and curses the day Roy Mustang has set his foot in this house, her Empire. There is someone knocking on their door and she hears the "one who must not be named" answer it. Hears these voices murmuring with soft exchange about who knows what. Riza recognizes Madame Tesla from the house next door and the other must be Roy's.

( _Just five years later, Riza will learn to pick his voice out among dozens and hundreds and thousands. She will hate his voice then. She will bless it too, and pray in the sand to hear it, just once more._ )

Only when she hears the sofa in the living room groan does she hurry down to boil the water for her father's tea. The water is already on the stove when she feels Roy in the corner of her eyes, a cat-like shadow, and their eyes meet.

He winks. She shots her tongue out so he stops at the kitchen door, halfway through the entrance, both lazy and clumsy, in the middle of the doorway.

His voice is smug when he speaks, but it feels like he practiced the tone, the style, before a mirror.

"Is that for me, Miss Hawkeye?"

She cannot help but smile. She hates pomp, but he is something prouder and nobler and harder to digest than his superficial, facial smugness. His fingers resting on the doorframe are long and lithe, drumming an even-pace, dictating an unconscious melody.

"Don't you think I'd be more deserving for a cup?" She tries to keep her voice serious, but it is becoming increasingly hard. "My neck is still freezing, you know."

She reckons she could (should?) be angry at this boy, this Roy Mustang for adorning and be adorned by her father who can only bear to pay attention to half of a human person at a time or not even that. And she most definitely could be jealous beyond reason that he has both an alchemist gift that makes him able to shower in his father's affections, or what is left of it - and he has that unfathomable charisma too, the one that makes him immediately likable to everyone, and what is more baffling, he makes Riza feel that yes, indeed, he should continue to lean on the doorframe, however clumsily, and look at her like that, till the very end of times.

" _La belle dame sans merci_ " Roy bites back in Aerugian. She understand only the "belle" and the "merci" part and hides her face behind her hair. It needs cutting soon, but right now, she is grateful for the shield it provides for her blush.

Sometimes, she wakes up in the middle of the night and has to pinch her hand to make sure she is real and living. She is a ghost in this house, so huge and empty. So what does Roy believe he will gain by being a flatterer? What does he _want_?

"What did Madame Tesla want?" she says instead. Roy folds his arms, cocks his head.

"His husband came home from Central just yesterday. Wanted your father to buy up some of his apples before they rot."

This is surprising.

"Couldn't he sell them in the city?"

Roy shrugs his shoulders, but his eyes harden, coal and stone even in the light of the fire.

"Central is under stress. There are complications in the East."

She wants to smile - the East is very far from here, and even if Ishval is under pressure; what does Roy care? In the end, she doesn't. Something tells her it would make Roy upset, her ridicule in this matter.

"It is for my father." she says suddenly, instead - not quite sure why she lets him in. Maybe to smooth his frown. To lighten her own conscience.

And he probably knows and understand, because his face switches to a soft kind of sobriety, to a strange sort of maturity.

"The nap he takes makes him grumpy sometimes." she adds.

Except the nap he takes is really just a drunken haze, and he is always grumpy when he wakes. But Roy is probably the first person who has experienced this - these - occurrences with her, and is learning to live with her father.

And Riza Hawkeye should hate Roy Mustang - the tea kettle whistles and she hears his father grumbling something in the living room - but Riza Hawkeye cannot.

"Speak of the devil" she says and tries to laugh it away, but the laugh comes out weak, like a shammed cough. She feels the water on the edge of release, the heat emanating from the stove and this is not as terrible as she thought it would be.

Despite her father's voice in the background, Roy looks at her with something akin to wistful tenderness, and it is not pity, it is not calculated, and at that moment, she forgets both her anger and her suspicions.

After all, she was and is continuing to lie to herself. This house is not her empire, far from it, actually. Her father's voice booms again, a little bit closer. He is not a patient man. Roy senses it too, because he is tensing in tandem with her, spine straight and muscles taut.

"I will talk to him" he says, and he has already rearranged his face. The jovial one is put back on. "We will begin the lesson and you can bring the tea in later?"

"Okay." she answers. "I will make you tea too." she adds, suddenly, as if thanking. As if apologizing.

Something flashes on Roy's face - an idea.

"Tell you what - let's have tea together, after dinner."

Riza doesn't know if he realized she has been skipping dinners on purpose, but she lets it slide.

"Okay."

He smiles, teeth glinting like pearls and lightning.

"Wear this sweater for me."

She throws a dishtowel at his face.

He gags.  
  


  
  
******  
  
News of the Civil War reaches them around ten, through the dying exhales of their small radio.  
  
Roy stares in his cup while Riza is washing the dishes and they share the solitude while snow falls outside. It is not ideal, but not too terrible either.  
  
( _The firelight paints them gold, like they were royalty_.)


End file.
